Ten years ago, tech was stuff you could pick up and drop on your toes. Now it’s often AI + X. What might AI make newly possible for people doing development in the future?

Fitting AI to real systems, building institutions that can work with it, and testing new arrangements that shift power over how it is developed and used.

We're offering catalytic grants of £15,000 – £20,000 to help ventures and organisations with solutions to address financial resilience of farmers, fishers and food businesses across Southeast Asia.

AI is a snapshot of the past. Ten years of AI pilots taught us that the constraint is rarely the algorithm.

OASIS is a shared, open home for AI in development, where practitioners can find, discuss and build on each other's work rather than starting from scratch. Come and join us.

We explore what the next phase of adaptation finance could look like for food supply chains exposed to climate shocks.

What does ethical action look like when humanitarian crises intersect with rapidly advancing technologies? Eight ethical lessons from the frontier of forensic technologies.

The value of testing something imperfect often outweighs the cost of not testing it at all.

Could drones help control desert locusts? A simple question, with a five year answer.

How can you cut through the noise of superabundant AI content? By telling stories of impactful AI that no one has ever heard before.

Can AI enable civil society organisations, culturally and contextually embedded but often under-resourced, to act faster and at a more ambitious scale to create more resilient societies, and to detect mis- and disinformation initiatives more effectively?

Over the past year, the Frontier Tech Hub has been exploring how to diversify and scale capital into the critical area of climate adaptation and resilience. Here’s what we learned from our first three pilots.

The World Bank calls carbon markets "essential for accelerating climate action in developing countries," but can ambitious frameworks deliver for the communities they're meant to serve?

When the Solomon Islands’ first CNC milling machine arrived, the operator role needed to be familiar with the AutoCAD design software. In a company of nearly 100 people, six were women, and two of them knew AutoCAD: Vai, and her sister. The opportunity went to Vai.

Today, Violet Ochieng is Kenya’s country representative for precision agriculture, in a field where around 90% of licensed pilots are men. She has built her expertise largely by finding her own way, and she is determined that the next generation will not have to do the same.

Here are ten things we learned from our 10th call for applications.

Pradita was an intern at Field Ready Nepal in 2017 when she saw the 3D printer on the table. Eight years after the pilot project, she is the Founder and Executive Director of Fab Foundation Nepal, continuing to explore the same question.

The Hub's funding and proof of concept now allows us to unlock reshoring and localised manufacturing for organisations and companies of unlimited size.

From Tanzania and the Sahel to Ukraine, Mexico, and Southeast Asia, this new cohort reflects a drive to design and harness tools for the fragile systems, low-connectivity environments, and real institutional constraints that need innovative solutions more than ever.

As AI capabilities evolved at breakneck speed, the DevExplorer team rebuilt their tool three times in a single year. This blog reflects on the technical and organisational lessons learned from building an LLM-powered product for international development in a rapidly shifting AI landscape.

Today, we’re announcing a new cohort of pilots harnessing frontier technologies to strengthen information integrity.

Despite growing confidence in AI, there’s more appetite than ever to experiment with and learn about it in safe, low-risk ways. Here are three ways we've been intentionally creating space to play with AI.

While AI tools for monitoring forest cover exist already, these solutions are often trained on data that does not apply across other contexts. Our pilot in Tanzania found that impact depends on local skills, institutions, and long-term ownership.

Can banana-fibre paper reduce nematode-related losses in white yam production in northern Ghana? Our two discovery reports outline the promises of a novel nature-based solution and the practical steps towards real-world adoption.

What happens when climate-driven forest fires outpace the capacity of existing fire detection and response mechanisms? Our pilot in Pakistan looked at how AI can enable early-warning systems for forest fires. Read the findings here.

Tackling the illegal wildlife trade is made harder by the limited tools to accurately identify species and determine their origin. Our MinION pilot in Colombia looked at portable DNA sequencing for better wildlife protection.

Gaps in WASH asset data mean that broken water points often go undetected, disproportionately affecting remote and marginalised communities. This pilot looked at how AI-assisted validation could strengthen oversight and ensure WASH infrastructure issues are addressed before they escalate.

Rapid digitisation of local health systems risks leaving behind those most in need of services. This report examines how practical digital features can improve visibility of vulnerable patients and support more equitable outreach.

Each month we take one global critical challenge and explore what’s happening on the frontier of innovation. This month we're On the Frontier of Biodiversity Data.